Making Jack Goode

I’ve come across the occasional mention of this chap, who appears to have been well-regarded by contemporaries, so we include him now in our annals.

Jack Goode a.k.a. Jack Good (Irwin Thomas Gittridge, 1908-1971) was a song and dance man, mostly associated with musical comedy of stage and screen. Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, he started out in vaudeville. I’ve come across references to him touring the Loew’s Circuit in a two man dance act with Francis Logan, and also playing an NVA benefit, both in the 1920s. Hello, Paris (1930) was his first Broadway show, followed by Face the Music (1932-33) and the original production of Of Thee I Sing (1933, he’s not credited on IBDB, I’m guessing he joined the tour).

Goode must have been chummy with Fred Astaire, for he appeared in three of the pictures he did with Ginger Rogers: Flying Down to Rio (1933), Top Hat (1935) and Swing Time (1936). He had much more prominent roles in several shorts he made around the same time, including The Knife of the Party (1934) with Shemp Howard; Masks and Memories (1934) with Queenie Smith; Who Is That Girl? (1934) with Bernice Claire and J. Harold Murray; Who’s Looney Now? (1936) with Jack Norton, Vivien Oakland, and and Billy Gilbert; the all-star Hollywood Party (1937); and Show for Sale (1937) with Eileen Barton. He also choreographed dance routines in Poor Little Rich Girl (1934) with Shirley Temple. In fall of 1937 he returned to Broadway in the short-lived The Show is On, with Willie and Eugene Howard, York and King, et al.

There’s a gap between here and his World War Two service, which I presume was filled with regional theatrical dates. After the war, he returned to Broadway in The Desert Song (1946), Gypsy Lady (1946), and a 1948 revival of Sally (1948). In the TV era, he made numerous appearances on The Jackie Gleason Show (including The Honeymooners), The Frank Sinatra Show, The Andy Griffith Show, That Girl, and The Monkees. He returned to Broadway in 1964 to replace David Burns in the original cast of Hello, Dolly opposite Carol Channing. His last tv credits were in 1968. Throughout the decades he worked constantly in regional and touring productions of major musicals as well.

For more on vaudeville historyplease check out No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.